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Development

When did you start developing for flight simulators and what
got you interested in it?

I started developing scenery for X-Plane in the fall of 2012, so I
am relatively new at it. When I first got X-Plane 9, X-Plane 10 was in
development and nearly ready for release. What can I say, I showed
up a little late to the party, I guess! Last fall I asked Brian
Godwin, another scenery designer, if there was a chance one of his
X-Plane 10 only scenery packages could be developed for those of us
still using version 9. He graciously attempted to convert the
scenery to version 9 on my behalf but went a step further. He asked
me if I would be interested in developing an X-Plane 9 variant of the
X-Plane 10 scenery he was working on. I hadn't really thought of
developing scenery on my own before and Brian assured me that he
would walk me through it. Brian had already drawn the taxiway, ramp,
and placed the runway so all I would have to do is, essentially,
place objects such as hangars, static airplanes, and various other
buildings and vehicles. I was intimidated at first and had tons of
questions. Brian was nothing but patient and helpful and quickly got
me pointed in the right direction. He is the best scenery mentor a
guy could ask for and is a fantastic designer, much more talented
than I. With Brian's help, my first project, 1S0 Pierce County Thun
Field (though the ICAO code is now KPLU) was well received by the
community at x-plane.org.

Tell us about the nature of your designs and what you
do?

General aviation is the kind of flying I enjoy the most in the sim
so, naturally, all of my current scenery designs reflect this. A lot
of folks are really into flying heavies in and out of the big
international airports or regional hubs. That's fantastic...just not
my style. There is also quite a bit more time and effort that goes
into modeling a large airport like that. I could turn out several
quality smaller sceneries in the time it would take me to model just
one of the big ones. I am also of a somewhat biased opinion that
small GA fields tend to have more character to them than the big
ones. There's just something special about a small, country,
home-town airport set in a scenic location. Those are my
favorites!

What do you consider your best or most popular
work?

I'm pretty confident that one of my most popular scenery packages
was also one of my most recent; KHQM Bowerman Airport. It has proven
to be popular and well received thus far so I'm pretty proud of that
one. I did it for X-Plane 10 so everything I'm building now seems to
look better. I attribute that more to the beauty of X-Plane 10 than
to my skills improving!

What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of a
project?

This may seem obscure, but I find the most challenging aspect of a
project to be attempting to bring the character of the real world
airport into the simulator (if that makes sense). My goal for every
scenery project I do is to make the user, "feel," as though they're
really there. I think that can be really difficult to pull off
sometimes without the benefit of being a 3D modeler and constructing
very location specific objects for each project one does. We
typically refer to that type of scenery as "payware!" I do not do
any 3D modeling or have any plans to learn at this point, I'm just
too busy with life outside of the simulator! I really strive to give
every project the effort and attention to detail that I would want
someone to give my home airport. I think I best achieve this through
my work by making sure the objects I place in the scenery (buildings,
static airplanes, pavement markings, forests, etc.) line up as
closely as possible to the real world location. If one takes the
time and effort to do this, one can achieve a level of believability
with their scenery package beyond mere plausibility, even with
limited stock or more generic objects.